Hasina calls on Dcs to 'serve the people'/Ready Made Garments owners reluctant to meet minimum wage demand:

Hasina calls on Dcs to 'serve the people'


Dhaka, Jul 25: Prime minister Sheikh Hasina urged deputy commissioners to work with a mentality of serving the people, pointing out that they were responsible for conveying findings to the government about the situation at the local level so that it can address the issues.

She was speaking at the inauguration of the three-day Deputy Commissioner conference, the 22nd since the country's independence, at the international conference centre in the prime minister's office on Sunday that started around 10am.

The prime minister also urged the highest district-level administrative officers to keep a keen eye on any possible terrorist activities and attempts to destabilise the country.

Cabinet secretary Abdul Aziz gave the welcome speech at the inauguration.

Chittagong divisional commissioner Mohammed Sirajul Haque Khan, Dhaka's deputy commissioner Mohammed Muhibul Haque and others also spoke at the programme.

The prime minister declared the conference officially open at around 12pm.

In her speech, Hasina also said, "The speed of work will have to be increased through proper coordination between district and upazila-level public representatives. Work will have to be done by alleviating, above all, fear, anguish, hatred and partisanship."

She also urged the DCs to keep a close watch on the demand, supply and stock situations in the market in a bid to bar corrupt syndicates from hiking prices during Ramadan.

Members of the cabinet, prime minister's advisors, secretaries of various ministries and other administrative officials were present at the inauguration.

Earlier, the cabinet secretary told bdnews24.com that discussions will be held on the deputy commissioners' role in different ministerial and departmental activities including the local government, agriculture, education, home, land, primary and mass education, health and law ministries.

President Zillur Rahman will deliver the concluding speech on the third day of the conference.

Source: bdnews24/July 25,2010

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garment factory owners are not interested in providing more than Tk 2,400 as minimum wage a month against the workers' demand of Tk 5,000, a parliamentary panel has been told. >>

Ready Made Garments owners reluctant to meet minimum wage demand:

Dhaka, July 25 (bdnews24.com)—Ready-made garment factory owners are not interested in providing more than Tk 2,400 as minimum wage a month against the workers' demand of Tk 5,000, a parliamentary panel has been told.

Considering the owners refusal, the watchdog on the labour and manpower ministry had recommended providing the workers with conveyance, accommodation facilities and other allowances for the poorly-paid workers.

Ministry officials informed the standing committee meeting that the minimum wage for the RMG workers could be announced a day later than the previously announced time-frame of July 28, which is a public holiday.

"The officials have informed us that the owners are not interested in paying more than Tk 2,400 per month," Israfil Alam, the standing committee chairman, told reporters after the meeting at parliament building.

He said the government was in consultation with the RMG owners to persuade them to pay more.
"We have recommended that the workers can survive if the owners provide them conveyance and other allowances plus accommodation facilities for the workers," said Alam, a labour leader, adding that only pay hike was not the solution for the workers' woes.

He said the standing committee suggested that the owners could build dormitories for the workers with loan from the government with only one percent service charge per year.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina last Wednesday announced in parliament that the government was ready to give loans to the RMG owners for constructing dormitories for the workers.

She termed the present minimum wage (Tk 1,662.50 per month) not only "inadequate but also inhuman".

The government formed a wage board headed by a justice to set a fresh minimum wage structure for the ready-made garment sector. Labour minister announced in parliament that the wage board would be made public on July 28.

The RMG sector contributes account for about 80 percent of the country's $18 billion export earnings.
Poorly paid RMG workers often take to the streets demanding pay hikes and other allowances.


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JS SPECIAL PANEL
BNP wants it recast with equal representation

The BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed on Saturday said his party would join the parliamentary special committee for review of the constitution if the panel was recast with equal number of members from the treasury and opposition benches.
Moudud, also former law minister, castigated the way the chief whip had sent a letter to the BNP asking it to nominate a representative for the committee, saying the party was given just 24 hours to do so with an ‘evil intention’ to give the public an impression that the government was doing everything after consulting with the opposition.
‘A single member in the committee can do little. If they want to form the committee proportionate to the strength [of the ruling party and opposition] in the house, it would be nothing but a single party committee,’ he said while taking to newsmen in his chamber at Motijheel.
Moudud said that should the ruling party bring amendments to the constitution changing its basic character, his party would nullify everything when it would return to power and restore the constitution to its present shape.
He said he found ‘no rationale’ for going back to the constitution as it was adopted in 1972 as many years had already passed and the amendments were brought to it to meet the requirements of time.
‘The Awami League will never be able to return to the “original” constitution as it would require taking back the Berubari enclave from India. There was no provision for declaring a state of emergency in the original constitution; the provision will have to be dropped if they want to go back to the original constitution,’ he said.
‘Even the prime minister herself is against restoring the 1972 constitution as she has already said that “Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim” [in the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful] will not be removed from the constitution and the religion-based parties will not be banned,’ he said.
‘How could the constitution be secular with Islam as the state religion and Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim remaining in its preamble,’ he asked.
Referring to the government’s claims that it had taken the initiatives in line with a court verdict, Moudud said, ‘The reality is that the Appellate Division is yet to give the details of the verdict.’
‘Even the High Court verdict on the fifth amendment to the constitution does not give any instruction to go back to the 1972 constitution,’ he said.
Moudud said secularism and socialism were never the ideals of the war of independence.
‘Nothing called secularism or socialism was included in the proclamation of independence announced by the government in exile,’ he said.
‘Those who claim that secularism was the spirit of the war of independence, do not speak the truth. The spirit of the war of independence was establishing an oppression-free democratic Bangladesh,’ he said.
In response to a question, Moudud said the High Court verdict on the fifth amendment did not make any comments on the provision for caretaker government. ‘The question of changing the caretaker government provision does not arise.’
The BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, on Wednesday said the formation of all-party parliamentary committee on constitutional amendments was ‘anti-constitutional’ and ‘against the parliamentary rules of procedure.’
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on July 16 announced that an all-party parliamentary committee would be formed to review the constitution in line with the directives of the High Court, which has declared the Fifth Amendment to the constitution ‘illegal.’


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Courtesy :Various News paper